Palace – The Winterland Town of Snow Elves
The Palace town was revealed back during New Year 2021-2022; well, “revealed” is a bit of a strong term, in this case. The old version of the town was merely teased and shown, and the only explanatory posts about it were bits and pieces of information in creature updates and forum replies, which the readers had to piece together with the material shown in order to form a picture.
Heroes 3 towns are self-explanatory, as is Palace, but it makes sense for us to share the town’s vision in a concise post, and expand on related matters as well, for newcomers and old-timers alike.
In the MM series, Vori has always been a mysterious island to the North-West of the main Antagarich continent. Even if it was featured in Heroes Chronicles and mentioned several times in Might and Magic VIII, we hardly got to know anything about it: cheesemaking Frost Giants, Vikings, it being inhabited by Snow Elves, Gelu being half Snow Elf, and an ill-fitting Rampart stand-in in a Heroes Chronicles campaign that takes place on Vori is pretty much all that the fans have ever seen or gotten to know about Vori. But that is where Palace comes in.
The Palace embodies the harsh beauty of the north – vast, timeless expanses of iridescent snow, snow-topped forests, as well as clear, starry skies and shimmering lights. Yet, there is also a tinge of nostalgia, as well as the powerful and unforgiving frost and nature. This very idea carries the town’s whole concept, and it is reflected in all of its aspects, from the town screen to the now visually-revised creature lineup, and even its musical theme.
Mythologically, the town follows the likeliest route which NWC would have pursued for the “winter town” representing the mysterious and timeless island of Vori: hardy Vikings, aided by creatures of the frozen winterlands, be they more savage in nature, such as the Sabertooths and Frost Giants, or be they pagano-divine, Asgardian, such as the Snow Elves and Valkyries.
The distinctive Frost Giants and Valkyries are not only meant to serve as Norse creatures for the town, but also to expand the game’s roster of “giant” and “holy/unholy” creatures beyond just the Titans and Angels, as the “dragons” have already received such treatment with the addition of the neutral dragons in Armageddon’s Blade.
We must not forget that the town also represents the Snow Elves’ civilizations, and we already have the Stronghold as a Barbarian town. Thus, the town must lean into a “divine Valhalla” aspect, as a town of the Norse gods and their Jarls and Oracles. Backing up this direction is a lesser known, but quite interesting fact: David Mullich, one of the game’s lead designers, was a big fan of Tolkien and his works, which expand beyond just The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
In Tolkien’s world, the elves were highly inspired by Norse concepts, including their affinity with Light, as well as their life cycle; the Halls of Mandos and Valinor are equivalent to concepts such as Valhalla and the Paradise (of Enroth), respectively. Furthermore, the Vori island itself is, in ways, similar to Valinor. Both are remote, isolated lands “across the sea”, both are ruled or inhabited primarily by elves, and both are some kind of ancestral place for the elven civilizations.
As is customary in Heroes 3, the Palace town does not limit itself to Nordic culture: just like in Rampart, the primary elven town, hints of Asian cultures are also present, and in Palace’s case, they are mostly Chinese.
This is also in part due to the Azure Dragons native to Vori being present in Chinese mythology, and the White Tiger being one of the Four Great Auspicious Beasts of Chinese mythos. The town seamlessly blends these aspects into an eclectic mix.
Helping this is the fact that dragon heads and ornaments are a common theme in both cultures, as are matters relating to astrology and divination. The White Tiger, for example, can embody a “prehistoric” beast of the snow trained by the Vikings, or a magical guardian beast of the lands.
Most unique in this marriage are the Kirin and Sacred Kirin. While back-referencing the creature of the same name from Heroes 6, and having primarily Chinese roots, its design borrows from the Norse wyrm dragons such as Jörmungandr or Fafnir, too, solidifying its place in the lineup.
Thus, their slightly serpentine body, their scales, their dragonoid features, and them being found in the context of a Nordic town. Beyond that, there is also an association with the stars and the Northern Lights, which can be seen at the shimmering, night sky-colored scales of the upgrade, as well as the wintery magic seeping out of its tail and chest.
This respects the creature’s original depictions, while still aiming at making the design as grounded as can be.
Day of Reckoning design philosophy and progress
It is no shame to admit that in its early days, the project’s quality bar was not very high; still rather high given its status as a Heroes 3 fan-mod, but not yet matching the original game. A comparison of the same map between the original teaser trailer and a regular, present-day screenshot of DoR makes that clear:
The creature evolution sheets, such as those shown earlier, tell the same story. The community has partaken in most of the Palace’s development, and the gradual transition from overly magical and slightly off visuals to more cohesive and grounded concepts has marked its development.
Of course, we must give a big thank to the Heroes 3 community for providing substantial feedback which determined the team to adjust the town, as well as gain more insight into Heroes 3’s visual design.
This transition is also one of this update’s subjects, and it relates not only to Palace, but also to the other aspects of the mod, such as alternate creatures, Forge, and Grotto. They benefitted a lot from that, which resulted in quicker and higher quality development, and thus less need to reiterate on the same things.
This can be seen at the Forge town screen shown at the h3gg DoR teaser. A fun fact is that its production began merely a few months before the reveal.
Yes, the road in the middle of the Forge screen has already seen changes, as have some of the other visuals seen in the video above. The quality bar increases constantly, and as a result of that and community feedback, the content shown is improving. Internally, we now also have thorough guidelines concerning the creation of visuals and not only, things which have furthered the team’s appreciation for the game’s style.
But such a subject deserves its own post – there are countless of interesting aspects to cover, and only full, proper explanations would do it justice. But for those who are curious nevertheless, you can check out one of my public posts concerning hero design in Heroes 3 (the post itself should be underneath the middle of the page).
Other Day of Reckoning Content
The Palace’s development seems to be doing well, but what about the other towns and areas of Day of Reckoning? Well, that’s a good question. While much of the public focus is on the Palace, the team members are working equally as much on the other aspects as well.
This means alternate creatures, spells, skills, map objects, as well as the two towns, Grotto and Forge. Yes, despite their lack of public presence, debatably more progress is being made in those areas than for Palace, and the team is enthusiastic about those concepts.
A question which might arise from reviewing Palace’s lineup posted above is that of whether the town will feature two alternate creatures or not. That is indeed the case. The aim of alternate creatures is not to cause a lack of balance, but to add more flavor to the towns and expand upon their aspects, as well as buff weaker towns and cover gameplay niches. And that is certainly the case in Palace.
Regarding new spells and skills, we still wish to keep a certain secrecy around them. But I can say that there is one “campaign” skill which will be introduced in DoR 1.0, besides the faction skills of Palace and Grotto, Initiative and Vitality.
For those who are not aware, Initiative is a counterpart of Tactics: while Tactics allows you to manipulate the creatures’ “movement”, Initiative allows you to boost the “initiative” (turn order) of one of your creatures, in the first turn. Vitality, on the other hand, is a Health-boosting skill. While not better than Armorer against creature attacks, it is also effective against spells, as opposed to Armorer, which is not.
HoMM III: Day of Reckoning – Palace and new Forge towns teaser
Upgraded tigers lost their armor…